APPENDIX. 493 



M. Chat^'s method, which he calls the French one, gives still greater 

 results, viz. : 80 per cent, of double flowers, and these produced by very 

 simple means. " When my seeds," he observes, " have been chosen 

 with care, I plant them, in the month of April, in good dry mould, in a 

 position exposed to the morning sun, this position being the most 

 favourable. At the time of flowering I nip off some of the flowering 

 bi-anches, and leave only ten or twelve pods on the secondary branches, 

 taking care to remove all the small weak branches which shoot at 

 this time. I leave none but the principal and the secondaiy branches 

 to bear the pods. All the sap is employed in nourishing the seeds 

 thus borne, which give a result of 80 per cent, of double flowers. The 

 pods under this management are thicker, and their maturation is more 

 perfect. At the time of exti-acting the seeds the upper portion of the 

 pod is sepai-ated and placed aside, because it has been ascertained that 

 the plants coming from the seeds situated in this portion of the" pod, 

 give 80 per cent, of single flowers. They yield, however, greater 

 variety than the others. This plan of suppressing that part of the 

 pod which yields single flowers in the largest proportion, greatly 

 facilitates the recognition of the single-flowered plants, because there 

 remains to be eliminated from among the seedlings only from 10 to 15 

 per cent. 



This separation of the single firom the double-flowered plants, M. 

 Chate tells us is not so difficult as might be supposed. The single 

 stocks, he explains, have deep green leaves (glabrous in certain species), 

 rounded at the top, the heart being in the form of a shuttlecock, and 

 the plant stout and thickset in its general aspect, while the plants 

 yielding double flowers have very long leaves of a light green colour, 

 hairy, and curled at the edges, the heart consisting of whitish leaves, 

 curved so that they enclose it completely. Such is the substance of M. 

 Chate's method of securing so large a proportion of double- flowered 

 plants, and then of separating them from the remaining single ones 

 a method which commends itself to the good sense of the intelligent 

 cultivator."' 



Signor Rigamonti, a great cultivator of pinks, asserted that he was 

 able to distinguish double from single-flowered pinks, in the seedling 

 state. According to this gentleman, those seedlings which produce 

 three cotyledons in a whorl in place of two, form double flowers. 

 In the case of Primula sinensis the same results occurred. Some had 

 three leaves in a ring, others two ; most had the leaves standing one 

 over the other as usual. These were divided into three sets, and when 

 they flowered, the first lot were all double, the second semi-double, the 

 third single. But these statements have not been confirmed by other 

 observers; and the writer can safely assert that seedling pinks occa* 



^ Leading Article in the ' Grardeners' Chronicle,' p. 74, 1866. 



